Custom purple yacht? Check. Glam new boutique in Cannes? Check. Nick Axelrod gets a taste of the superfabulous seafaring life of Roberto Cavalli

Roberto Cavalli hasn't seen a film at Cannes since 2007, when he attended the premiere of Julian Schnabel's melancholic The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, winner of that year's directing award. Working his way through a bowl of fava beans on the upper deck of his iridescent purple yacht, the Italian designer recalls, with some amusement, donning a tuxedo in the middle of the day (his preferred tux is of the Canadian variety—a loosely buttoned denim shirt and blue jeans is his uniform), walking the red carpet in 90-degree heat, only to sit in a movie theater and watch the poetic, heartrending story of a French ELLE editor's fatal struggle with locked-in syndrome. Schnabel is a "good friend of mine," Cavalli says, but the potent film—as well as the event's pomp and circumstance—was "just too much." This is, after all, a designer known as much for his flamboyant, carefree lifestyle as for the fabulous-life attire (decadent, gypsy-tinged evening dresses, printed caftans) he's created for more than 40 years.

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"I don't think Cannes is completely my style," Cavalli says in his Florentine drawl. "There are too many people—too crowded. But it's just the right place for my character, my company." As the almond-eyed Brazilian model and Cavalli pal Alessandra Ambrosio puts it, "Where else would he have his yacht right now?" Indeed, the 138-foot boat that took three years to customize from the hull up is a constant presence in the Cannes marina during the film festival each May.

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So, this year it was in service of his brand, if not exactly his self, that the 70-year-old designer and his wife, Eva, left their "floating villa" for a few hours to cut the ribbon on a new Roberto Cavalli boutique on the Boulevard de La Croisette, Cannes' steroidal version of New York's Fifth Avenue. "To see thousands of people shouting, `Roberto! Roberto! Roberto! We love you!'—that gives me a good feeling," Cavalli says of the party, which lured a well-heeled and equally well-sunned mix of models (Ambrosio, Irina Shayk, Laetitia Casta, Bar Refaeli) and personalities (Ivana Trump, Brooke Shields) to sip champagne or Cavalli-label vodka and sit atop beach cushions wrapped in Cavalli scarves.

Later that night, a much tighter list (Rosario Dawson, in a strapless sequined Cavalli mini, and Janet Jackson both darted in well after midnight) continued the festivities aboard the yacht, over small plates of skewered sesame-crusted sardines, pulpo, and pasta. With disco hits pumping and barefoot—per ship policy—swimsuit models in body-clinging beaded and leather-stitched dresses waving their toned limbs, Cavalli worked the crowd, serving food, getting drinks, and embracing old friends such as Rolling Stones guitarist Ronnie Wood and entrepreneur-dilettante Jean "Johnny" Pigozzi.

By the following afternoon, you'd never know there had been a party, let alone a rager. Thanks, no doubt, to a sleepless night for the yacht's eight-person crew, the mink rugs are shiny, the leopard-print pillows fluffed, the snakeskin-upholstered chairs de-crumbed. (As for his signature animal prints—key motifs aboard the boat, and, one would imagine, anywhere he lays his head—Cavalli says, "I copy the dress of an animal because I love to copy God. I think God is the most fantastic designer.") Even the strands of real pearls artfully strewn on white orchids and chunks of coral on side tables seem especially radiant. The man, meanwhile, is clearly satisfied with the opening, and in a bit of a meditative mood. "It's a barometer of your success," he says of such events. "I can never do it every day, but to do it every five or six months, it's good. I can check every time if people love me more or love me less." Has his life always been this decadent? "I think I was the first to show that a designer could be like a rock star, that people should love your fashion but also put your name together with your fashion," he says, recalling his early-'70s beginnings, when he opened his first boutique in Saint-Tropez, as well as his more recent history as the go-to outfitter for sirens including the Spice Girls, Shakira, and Jennifer Lopez. "As we grew, people started to understand my name together with the beautiful life, with music, with nightlife—maybe too much," he adds. "But this kind of life makes people dream."